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Footage shows a graveyard of Russian armored vehicles in Avdiivka, where Russia has mounted its biggest attack in months

Nov 15, 2023, 21:30 IST
Business Insider
Footage shared by Ukraine's military shows the destruction near Avdiivka.47th Separate Mechanized Brigade
  • Video shared by Ukraine shows the scale of Russian losses at Avdiivka.
  • Russia launched its largest attack in months there, but has made no major breakthrough.
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New video shows the battered remains of Russian vehicles in an area where Russia has launched its biggest attack against Ukraine in recent months.

Aerial footage shared by General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine's Tavriia Operational Strategic Group, on Monday showed destroyed and smoking Russian vehicles in fields near Avdiivka, along with what appear to be dead Russian soldiers.

The video, filmed by Ukraine's 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, also contains footage filmed from a drone as it approaches and then hits a Russian armored vehicle, as well as huge fires and billowing smoke coming from the remains of some tanks.

The video is part of a wealth of footage that has emerged from the heavy fighting around Avdiivka, a strategic town in eastern Ukraine that acts as a gateway to Russia-occupied Ukraine.

Ukraine recaptured the village from Russian forces in September, and Russia launched a major attack on it on October 10, in what the UK Ministry of Defence said was likely Russia's most serious offensive operation since at least January.

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Ukraine said Russia's goal was to encircle the town, but that it has so far not been able to do so.

Instead, while Russia has made some progress, it hasn't seen any major breakthroughs, and has reportedly suffered huge losses of troops and equipment.

Ukraine has claimed that Russia lost more than 6,000 soldiers and over 400 armored vehicles there in just one week last month. It isn't possible to verify its figures.

And the White House said that Russia has seen heavy losses near Avdiivka, without giving specific figures, and that it had been "executing soldiers who are refusing to follow orders" there.

The UK MOD, at the end of October, described Russia's actions in Avdiivka as a "major offensive effort" and said that elements of eight brigades that Russia had committed to the fight had "likely suffered some of Russia's highest casualty rates of 2023 so far."

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said that "Russia is already losing soldiers and equipment near Avdiivka faster and on a larger scale than, for example, near Bakhmut."

The battle of Bakhmut is considered the longest and bloodiest in Russia's invasion.

Riley Bailey, a Russia expert who works at the Institute for the Study of War, previously told Business Insider that Russia's major tank and vehicle losses at Avdiivka show Russia hasn't "learned a lesson about how to properly conduct mechanized maneuver warfare."

Instead, he said, it is repeating mistakes it made earlier in the invasion.

Ukrainian units fighting in Avdiivka say they are inflicting significant damage on Russian forces there.

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The 53rd Separate Mechanized Brigade on Sunday described it as a "mass suicide" action by Russia and said hundreds of Russian soldiers had been killed.

Meanwhile, the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade said last week that in three weeks of fighting Russia had lost hundreds of tanks and 250 units of other armored equipment.

Even so, the fighting is ongoing, and Ukraine said Russia this week has only intensified its attacks.

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